Automated attack surface management software helps security teams stay on top of both an organization and its vendors in a centralized platform that can monitor and manage vulnerabilities and misconfigurations as they appear.
With many solutions offering attack surface management capabilities, you may need help choosing the best solution for your organization’s needs. This guide outlines the main considerations of effective attack surface management software and the best solutions currently on the market.
Already know what attack surface management software is? Skip ahead to our list of the top 10 attack surface management solutions.
What is attack surface management software?
Attack surface management (ASM) software is a set of automated security tools that monitor and manage external digital assets that contain, transmit, or process sensitive data. ASM software identifies misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that cybercriminals could exploit for malicious purposes that result in data breaches or other serious security incidents. The vulnerability severity measuring aspect of ASM functionality could also support penetration testing efforts and related risk management dependencies.
Who uses attack surface management platforms?
Any organization that deals with sensitive data should monitor and manage its attack surface vigilantly. Data security standards are mandated by privacy and protection laws, such as the GDPR, CCPA, and SHIELD Act. Organizations that suffer data breaches face non-compliance with these legal requirements. Harsh financial penalties and reputational damage follow shortly after.
Small businesses and large multinational organizations from all industries leveraging service providers can benefit from attack surface management software. Fast remediation is essential in industries with large amounts of confidential data. These types of data could include personally identifiable information (PII), trade secrets, intellectual property, or other confidential information.
For example:
- The healthcare sector manages protected health information (PHI). This data is highly valued on the dark web, with cybercriminals purchasing it to commit identity theft and insurance fraud. The vulnerability scanning features of attack surface management tools could detect risks threatening the safety of PHI.
- Financial institutions must protect sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and bank account details. Financial data is also very profitable in cybercrime. Cybercriminals are always scanning financial entities for potential vulnerabilities to exploit.
- Government bodies hold in-depth PII on citizens, protected records, and other highly classified information. Threat actors with political motivations, such as ransomware gangs, are likely to target government organizations in cyber attacks.
Attack surface analysis tools
An Idealistic Attack Surface Management platform will include attack surface analysis capabilities. Attack surface analysis tools offer prerequisite insights for subsequent management tasks. They identify all IT ecosystem vulnerabilities that could be exploited in a cyber attack, such as unpatched software, misconfigurations, open ports, and insecure APIs.
Attack surface analysis aims to identify and document all potential attack vectors that should be addressed in a risk management program.
Attack surface management vs. Attack surface analysis
Attack surface analysis is performed through a combination of automated scans and point-in-time risk assessments to map all vulnerabilities impacting the security posture of an entity, such as a third-party vendor.
Attack surface management is the ongoing process of keeping a company’s risk exposure, as identified through an attack surface analysis, within acceptable levels.
An ASM software solution with attack surface analysis capabilities is typically characterized by the following features:
- End-to-end risk remediation workflows: to address the complete lifecycle of detected attack vectors.
- Remediation impact projections: to help security teams prioritize critical risks with the most detrimental impacts on an organization’s security posture.
- Risk assessment workflows: to keep all attack surface management insights in one centralized location.
Important features of attack surface management tools
Modern attack surface management software must offer the following five features to perform its role effectively:
- Step 1: Asset Discovery
- Step 2: Inventory and classification
- Step 3: Risk scoring and security ratings
- Step 4: Continuous security monitoring
- Step 5: Malicious asset and incident monitoring
For a concise overview of the attack surface reduction process, watch this video:
Experience UpGuard’s attack surface management features with this self-guided product tour >
1. Asset discovery
The initial stage of any reputable attack surface management solution is the discovery of all Internet-facing digital assets that contain or process your sensitive data such as PII, PHI, and trade secrets. The collection of these assets make up your digital footprint.
These assets can be owned or operated by your organization, as well as third parties such as cloud providers, IaaS and SaaS, business partners, suppliers, or external contractors. The presence of Shadow IT - digital devices that haven’t been approved by security teams, makes the inventory stage of asset management very difficult.
2. Inventory and classification
Following asset discovery, the digital asset inventory and classification (IT asset inventory) process begins.
During this step, assets are labeled and dispatched based on:
- Type;
- Technical characteristics and properties;
- Business criticality;
- Compliance requirements;
- Owner
3. Security ratings and risk scoring
Security ratings offer an objective and unbiased evaluation of a vendor’s security posture. According to Gartner, this feature will become as important as credit ratings when assessing the risk of existing and new business relationships in a Vendor Risk Management program.
4. Continuous security monitoring
Continuous security monitoring is one of the most important features of an attack management solution, as it ensures the timely detection and remediation of emerging vulnerabilities in your digital footprint.
5. Integrated Risk Management Workflows
An ideal ASM tool should include integrated workflows addressing the complete risk treatment lifecycle. These should include:
- Remediation workflows: For instantly assigning risk treatment responses for detected exposures across internal and external attack surfaces.
- Risk assessment workflows: For in-depth evaluations of third-party vendors impacted by threats in the external attack surface.
- Reporting workflows: For keeping stakeholders informed of your internal and external attack surface management efforts.
Top 10 attack surface management solutions in 2024
1. UpGuard
Key attack surface management product features
- Complete attack surface monitoring of an organization and its vendors
- Real-time security posture alerts and reporting
- Streamlined remediation workflows
Why UpGuard?
UpGuard offers continuous attack surface monitoring of an organization and its vendors. Paired with data leak detection capabilities, the platform offers complete attack surface protection against misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that could facilitate data breaches.
Who uses UpGuard's attack surface management services?
UpGuard is a cybersecurity platform that helps global organizations prevent data breaches, monitor third-party vendors, and improve their security posture. Using proprietary security ratings, world-class data leak detection capabilities, and powerful remediation workflows, we proactively identify security exposures for companies of all sizes.
Start your free UpGuard trial >
External asset discovery
With UpGuard’s attack surface management features, you can keep an accurate and always up-to-date inventory of all external facing assets. UpGuard’s automated asset discovery process maps domains and IP address mapping to your organization based on active and passive DNS and other fingerprinting techniques.
You can also specify IP address monitoring ranges for IT asset detection. This will automatically acknowledge any new devices connected within these ranges once they become active, keeping your asset inventory updated.
Watch this video to learn how UpGuard can help you detect obscure technologies in your external attack surface:
Third-party cyber risk detection
UpGuard’s risk profile feature detects a vast range of potentially exploitable attack vectors in the external attack surface, including complex risks like unmaintained web pages, end-of-life web server software, and vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange server software.
Vendor security posture tracking
UpGuard’s security ratings feature offers an accurate and unbiased representation of each vendor’s security posture.
Security teams can leverage UpGuard's security rating technology to project the impact of remediation tasks associated with third-party risks detected through automated scanning processes. This feature makes it easier to decide which remediation tasks should be prioritized to maximize the effectiveness of an external attack surface management program.
Dashboards summarising vendor risk exposure offer a single-pane-of-glass view of your entire third-party attack surface. With continuous monitoring of third-party attack surfaces, these dashboards can help you track security posture improvements in real time
Integrated risk management workflows
The UpGuard platform offers integrated workflows addressing both the analysis and risk management aspects of Attack Surface Management. The platform's risk assessment workflow bridges the gap between these two components, allowing users to conveniently track all relevant cyber risk lifecycles from a single operational perspective.
Watch this video for an overview of UpGuard's risk assessment workflow.
For keeping stakeholders informed of your attack surface management efforts, UpGuard's reporting workflow references a library of customizable reporting templates, that can be generated based on your attack surface manegement insights with a single click.
UpGuard's reporting library includes a board summary report template and PowerPoint slides to streamline board presentations about ASM efforts.
2. Bitsight
Key attack surface management product features
- Security ratings
- Attack surface analytics
- Continuous third-party monitoring
Learn how Bitsight compares with UpGuard >
Why Bitsight?
Bitsight allows organizations to detect vulnerabilities and misconfigurations affecting an organization and its vendors through its data and analytics platform.
- The solution’s dashboard provides context into an organization's attack surface and its vendors’ security postures
- The data and analytics platform continuously monitors for unknown vulnerabilities
Who uses Bitsight's attack surface management services?
Bitsight partners with 2,400+ companies worldwide.
3. Panorays
Key attack surface management product features
- Third-party security ratings
- Cyber risk monitoring
- Dark web insights
Learn how Panorays compares with UpGuard >
Why panorays?
Panorays evaluates vendors’ attack surfaces by analyzing externally available data.
- Continuously monitors third-party attack surface; groups security risks into three categories: Network & IT, Application, or Human
- Real-time alerting for any security changes/breaches
Who uses Panorays' attack surface management services?
Panorays partners with resellers, MSSPs, and technology to provide an automated third-party security platform that manages the inherent and residual risk, remediation, and ongoing monitoring.
4. SecurityScorecard
Key attack surface management product features
- Third-party security ratings
- Cyber risk intelligence
- Hacker chatter monitoring
Learn how SecurityScorecard compares with UpGuard >
Why SecurityScoreCard?
SecurityScorecard provides organizations insight into their vendors’ security postures through its cybersecurity ratings.
- Security ratings are based on ten groups of risk factors; network security, DNS health, patching cadence, endpoint security, IP reputation, application security, cubit score, and hacker chatter.
Who uses SecurityScorecard's attack surface management services?
Organizations use SecurityScorecard’s rating technology for self-monitoring, third-party risk management, board reporting, and cyber insurance underwriting.
5. ProcessUnity (formely CyberGRX)
Key attack surface management product features
- Continuous monitoring of inherent risk
- Risk scoring
- Real-time threat intelligence
Learn how CyberGRX compares with UpGuard >
Why ProcessUnity?
ProcessUnity allows organizations to manage third-party cyber risk and threats with data intelligence.
- ProcessUnity provides visibility into an organization’s entire third-party cyber risk exposure by aggregating and analyzing data from multiple sources.
Who Uses ProcessUnity?
ProcessUnity provides security professionals, risk managers, and procurement managers with ongoing analysis of their vendor portfolio.
6. OneTrust Vendorpedia
Key attack surface management product features
- Third-party risk exchange
- Privacy, security and data governance platform
- Insights on vendors’ security controls, policies, and practices
Learn how OneTrust Vendorpedia compares with UpGuard >
Why OneTrust Vendorpedia?
OneTrust does not natively incorporate many of the critical breach vectors associated with an organization’s external-facing attack surfaces.
- Offers an AI engine via their Athena product enabling risk insights across privacy, security, and governance risks. Athena provides insights about a vendor’s internally managed security controls, policies, and practices.
Who uses OneTrust Vendorpedia's attack surface management services?
OneTrust Vendorpedia facilitates a community of shared vendor risk assessments from participating vendors for small and medium businesses and large enterprises.
7. RiskRecon
Key attack surface management product features
- Continuous monitoring of an organization and its vendors
- IT profiling
- Security analytics
Learn how RiskRecon compares with UpGuard >
Why RiskRecon?
RiskRecon offers cybersecurity ratings and deep reporting capabilities to help businesses surface and manage cyber risks.
- The platform’s portal allows users to implement a baseline configuration to match risk structures being used to manage enterprise and third-party risk. Risks monitored to provide visibility into email security, application security, network filtering, and more.
Who uses RiskRecon's attack surface management services?
Organizations across a range of industries worldwide, including finance, insurance, healthcare, energy, and defense, use RiskRecon to minimize their risk.
8. Recorded Future
Key attack surface management product features
- Threat intelligence platform
- Delivers intelligence insights across six risk categories: brand, threat, third-party, SecOps, vulnerability, and geopolitical
- Evidence-based risk scoring
Learn how Recorded Future compares with UpGuard >
Why Recorded Future?
Recorded Future provides context surrounding vulnerabilities, enabling organizations to prioritize remediation.
- Recorded Future’s Vulnerability Intelligence module collects vital vulnerability data from a range of open, closed, and technical sources, assigning each vulnerability with a risk score in real time.
Who uses Recorded Future's attack surface management services?
Recorded Future provides machine-learning and human-based threat intelligence to its global customer base.
9. ReliaQuest (formerly Digital Shadows)
Key attack surface management product features
- Attack surface monitoring
- Vulnerability investigation
- Threat intelligence
Learn how Digital Shadows compares with UpGuard >
Why Digital Shadows?
Digital Shadows Searchlight™ identifies vulnerabilities, allowing organizations to prioritize and patch their most critical identified risks.
- Digital Shadows’ SearchLight™ continuously identifies exploitable vulnerabilities across an organization’s public-facing infrastructure.
Who uses Digital Shadows' attack surface management services?
Digital Shadows provides security teams threat intelligence with focused digital risk insights.
10. CybelAngel
Key attack surface management product features
- Asset discovery and monitoring
- Incident severity indicator
- CVE vulnerability detection
Why CybelAngel?
CybelAngel gains visibility into organizations’ attack surfaces.
- CybelAngel’s Asset Discovery & Monitoring solution identifies and helps secure vulnerable shadow assets.
Who uses CybelAngel's attack surface management services?
CybelAngel provides its global enterprise clients with digital risk protection solutions.
